There has been an exception made to the DMCA that now allows users to unlock their mobile devices. From EFF:

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San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) won three critical exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anticircumvention provisions today, carving out new legal protections for consumers who modify their cell phones and artists who remix videos — people who, until now, could have been sued for their non-infringing or fair use activities.

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In its reasoning in favor of EFF's jailbreaking exemption, the Copyright Office rejected Apple's claim that copyright law prevents people from installing unapproved programs on iPhones: "When one jailbreaks a smartphone in order to make the operating system on that phone interoperable with an independently created application that has not been approved by the maker of the smartphone or the maker of its operating system, the modifications that are made purely for the purpose of such interoperability are fair uses."

It is kind of ridiculous the crap that surrounds electronics in the usa what with patents and copyrights and dumb bureaucrats who know squat about computers and feel threatened by people who do. I mean this is a great win, but it is kind of ridiculous that we had to wait so long for it to finally come. The issue seems rather simple really, you buy a piece of hardware, you should be able to run whatever you want on the hardware. Of course if you use the hardware for not so nice acts, you should be punished for the acts committed not the software running on the hardware. It is like buying a screw driver but you can get screwed (pun intended ;)) over and sued if you grip it the wrong way. The problem is the people who make the laws are still mystified by the electronic voodoo magic some people do and think that the internet is some magic portal to a far away land where their are fantastical beasts like trolls and women =P

July 28th, 2010, 03:04 AM

nihil

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The issue seems rather simple really, you buy a piece of hardware, you should be able to run whatever you want on the hardware.

The most you might expect is that you invalidate the warranty?

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The problem is the people who make the laws are still mystified by the electronic voodoo magic some people do and think that the internet is some magic portal to a far away land where their are fantastical beasts like trolls and women =P

Try the UK's "Digital Economy Act 2010"...............it is a classic example. It assumes that people will use "free" wireless hotspots to download copyright material :rolleyes:

July 28th, 2010, 05:24 PM

SnugglesTheBear

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Originally Posted by nihil

Try the UK's "Digital Economy Act 2010"...............it is a classic example. It assumes that people will use "free" wireless hotspots to download copyright material :rolleyes:

Heh, read through the wikipedia article. Rather entertaining.

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Originally Posted by wikipedia.org;

The new process........ begins with rightsholders gathering lists of Internet Protocol addresses which they believe have infringed their copyrights..... They would then send each IP number to the appropriate Internet Service Provider along with a "copyright infringement report"

umm, hi my name is DHCP, most users use me. So by the time you build up a big enough list for you to take action against me i.e. when I hit my "threshold", my IP address could have easily changed :) Also, I think you should meet my friend Proxy and his lovely date Tor.

Even what you said nihil, just use a free public wireless hotspot. Sigh, the only way to effectively combat piracy is to open up your product and make it readily available and not cost an arm and a leg :/. It is the same with DRMs, the only people you are punishing are the legitimate users.

July 28th, 2010, 07:02 PM

nihil

Yes, I know. My objection is that our politicos haven't thought it through or done any research.

Most of these "free" hotspots are in cafes, bars, restaurants and hotels.........so they are only "free to paying customers" which is a whole different ballgame? You have to ask for the access code of the day, which means you have to buy something.

Also, because they are paying for the service, the owners generally go for the cheapest option, which is the slowest. If you get two or three people on it then they are probably only getting 1Mbps.

I have ADSL (common in UK sticksville) which gives me around 8Mbps but only 448Kbps upstream, which makes torrents rather slow if you have to balance your traffic.

My main argument is that the home hubs/routers that our ISPs provide have no security other than to protect its own settings. Anything within range can connect to the router because there is no user ID or password.

OK you can stop it broadcasting an SSID, but how many members of the general public would even know it existed let alone how to do it.

That suggests to me that there are millions of free wireless connections available in the UK which can be accessed from the comfort of your own home (depending on where you live).

This is totally useless to rightsholders, as they have no idea who was actually using a connection to download their material.